JIRA: Queen of the Monsters!
by AdventDestiny-BETA
Summary: The beginning of a new series of short stories, following the exploits of the half human/half Godzilla girl, Jira Megami.


JIRA: Queen of the Monsters

By G.J.S./AdventDestiny 04/18/13

April 3, 2013

Unidentified lake in the United States, Washington

3:14 AM

Wind blew through the branches of a hundred deciduous trees, the leaves fluttering like the wings of a thousand butterflies. Water rippled across the surface of the once still lake, illuminated by the dim light of the full moon that sat in the sky, already beginning its slow descent beneath the horizon.

The night was silent, save for the occasional hoot of an owl on the hunt. Or to be more accurate, the night was silent, that is until a black, unmarked military helicopter streaked over the tree tops, the powerful downdraft from its propeller causing the trees to creak and sway as dozens of small animals scattered from their resting places. The helicopter flew over the lake, leaving an ever expanding wake across the now churning water.

The helicopter slowed, coming to a halt over a small, open clearing beside the lake. The panels on the sides slid open, as the helicopter's occupants repelled down thirty feet, tactical boots crunching the occasional stray twig that had been blown into the clearing by the gale generated by the helicopter. Stray leaves and insects swirled around dozen men as they unclipped themselves from their zip lines. They all wore black fatigues, their faces concealed by black face masks and night vision goggles. They all carried large backpacks, and each man was armed with heavy caliber machine guns and pistols loaded with armor piercing rounds.

The helicopter pulled the lines back in, closing its doors as it raised higher into the air, before flying off back the way it came. The soldiers checked their gear, making sure that their equipment and weapons were in working order. Then the squad leader turned, silently ordering them to split up into pairs using hand signals.

The six teams spread out, all moving into the forest away from the lake, searching for their target... ironically, they were heading in the wrong direction, for as the soldiers disappeared into the woods, their target lay in the lake. A small trail of bubbles appeared, making its way towards the bank not far from the helicopter's drop zone. As the mysterious creature neared the shore, it began to surface.

The first thing to emerge from the water was a row of bony plates, silvery blue and shaped like stylized conifer trees, not unlike the smell fresheners left hanging from the rear view mirror of a car.

Meanwhile, in the forest, two of the soldiers were heading down to the northeastern side of the lake. They kept their guns at the ready, quickly looking around, double checking every bush, every tree, for any sign of their objective; they had all been informed of what they were looking for. For years, there had been reports of something in this forest, hiding in the lake. Several eyewitnesses claimed that they saw some sort of animal, which they all described as human sized, grey, and reptilian, with several rows of blue fins on its back.

Most people thought it was just another lake monster hoax, or losers high on drugs hallucinating. A few people actually believed the stories, thinking that a new, undiscovered species of prehistoric survivors had managed to evade extinction in this little corner of North America. Theories varied, ranging from classic plesiosaurs, to escaped crocodiles. One crytozoologist who claimed to have taken a photo of the creature, believes that it may be a type of freshwater mermaid, and that it also may be related to the Thetis Lake Monster supposedly living in the Thetis Lake in Victoria, Canada.

The government paid no interest to the ludicrous tale, at least until a newly constructed fish cannery on the lake was destroyed, burned to the ground. Officially it was an accident, but several survivors swore that what caused the destruction was a creature that had emerged from the lake, breathing blue fire. When an undercover investigation discovered radioactive scorch marks on several of the buildings, they began to take the sightings seriously.

The attack on the cannery, and the traces of radiation left in the mystery creature's wake, were disturbingly similar to one other creature, something far more destructive. Something whose name sent a shudder down the back of even the bravest man. A creature that had terrorized the world for over sixty years...

Godzilla.

Obviously it wasn't the dreaded King of the Monsters himself; the damage was too minimal, and besides, Godzilla had last been seen in the waters off of the coast of Africa. There was no way that he could swim all the way from the Atlantic Ocean, then crossed the whole of the United States and make it to the lake in less than the two days between his last sighting and the attack [besides, someone would have seen a 150 foot tall dinosaur crossing over a thousand miles of populated land!]

The current theory is that it might be an adolescent Godzilla, recently hatched from an irradiated egg. Unfortunately, this "Baby Godzilla" could quickly become an adult, so to prevent this, the United Nations Godzilla Countermeasures Center (UNGCC) sends a top secret military team, recruited from the best of the special forces teams from the Air Force, Marine Core, the Army, and the Navy, to eliminated the creature, then retrieve the body for study.

Unfortunately for the squad of soldiers, their target had other plans. As the two soldiers, both Marines, cautiously moved forward, the creature stalked them. The hairs on the back of one of the Marines stood on end, as he sensed something was following them, and spun around. He scanned the area, looking for whatever he sensed something was following them, and spun around. He scanned the area, looking for whatever he sensed, to no avail. He turned to his partner, shaking his head. They both turned back, and as the Marine's eyes returned to the path ahead, the last thing he saw was a rock the size of a football flying into his face.

The rock smashed into the Marine's face, flattening his night vision goggles as his head snapped back, instantly breaking his neck. As the Marine's lifeless body fell backwards to the ground, his teammate immediately ducked down, firing his machine gun blindly in the direction from where the lethal projectile had come. He kept firing, unloading half of his ammo belt before pausing, trying to determine the status of the target. He quickly got his answer, as the darkness was suddenly illuminated by bright blue flashes, briefly revealing a distinctly human-like silhouette, seconds before a stream of blue plasma cut through the second Marine like a laser.

The gunfire had alerted the other soldiers, who moved in, weapons at the ready. All pretense of stealth were gone, as the first man to arrive at the scene didn't even get a chance to raise his gun before a second heat beam blasted the ground at his feet, severely burning his lower left leg. As he collapsed in pain, three more soldiers opened fire on the point where the beam had come. Their target gave a high, predatory scream, then charged at high speed.

The soldiers kept firing, their machine guns vibrating as hundreds of 30. caliber bullets roared out of their barrels, illuminating the darkness in front of the soldiers. Despite the overwhelming fire power being unleashed upon its small frame, the monster seemed to only slow down slightly, shielding its face with thin, scaly arms. When it was about thirty feet away, the creature leapt to the side, landing on the branches of a tree, two stories above the ground.

As the soldiers reacquired their target, it raced along a thick branch, bullets tearing through the leaves and splintering the branches as the creature leapt down, crashing right into one of the soldiers with enough force to crush his ribcage and send both he and his killer sliding a good ten feet across the ground. The other two soldiers concentrated fire onto their downed target, which gave a howl of rage and pain as it crouched over its latest victim. Green blood sprayed out from the dozens of wounds being made, only to completely heal seconds after being inflicted. Still, the constant stream of hot lead was taking its toll, and would have eventually brought the beast down, if the two machine gun's ammunition belts hadn't picked that inconvenient time to run out! Both guns suddenly stopped firing, and the two soldiers looked at each other in horror. Then the monster struck!

With a feral roar, the monster leapt onto one of the soldiers, forcing him to the ground and pummeling him into the dirt. The remaining soldier attempted to save his comrade by shooting the creature with his pistol, with no effect, other than drawing the beast's attention. His screams echoed through the dark forest, causing the remaining six soldiers to stop in their tracks. The leader paused, then signaled to the others. Time for Plan B...

The bloodied body of the unfortunate soldier slammed to the ground, sharp claws still buried in his flesh. It then leaned forward, sniffing its enemy, making sure he was dead. A gunshot rang out, as a bullet impacted against the right side of the monster's head. It yelped, as the bullet actually deflected off of the skull, briefly leaving a bloody mark that quickly healed. Still, the force of the bullet staggered the creature, as it scrambled back to its feet, turning to the shooter.

It was the injured soldier, his left leg blackened from the high temperature beam of irradiated plasma, He had pulled off his mask, revealing a young man, handsome, with short blonde hair, and some light stubble on his jaw. He was sweating, obviously in great pain, but still able to line up his shot and fire, unloading the nine remaining rounds in his pistol.

The bullets had absolutely no effect, and as the young soldier clicked the trigger of the empty gun uselessly, the monster approached. The soldier's arm fell to his side, shock setting in as he looked up at his attacker. At this point the youth was certain he was hallucinating, because now that the thing that had almost effortlessly wiped out his teammates was close enough for him to clearly see, he frankly could not believe what stood before him was real.

For one thing, it was a she, and she was beautiful. Body wise, she looked human, with a very slim build. Her skin was charcoal grey, and the front of her torso was slightly lighter shade of grey, bordered by small raised spines. Similar spines rose off of her shoulders and neck, her lower arms and legs. Her hands only bore four digits, each tipped with sharp claws. She stood on four clawed toes, her feet raised off of the ground like she were wearing a pair of invisible high heels. A raised ridge line started at the base of her jaw, forming into a ribbed patter on the center of her chest, between a pair of petite breasts. The line continued down to her navel, then went down the abdomen. A long, spiked tail whished through the air behind her, and though the soldier couldn't see it from his angle, three rows of jagged dorsal plates rose from her back, the center row on her spine twice as large the outer rows.

And as the Godzilla girl crouched down, till her face was level with the wounded soldier's, he saw that her face was just as human as her body. In fact, there was very little difference between her face and that of a normal girl's. Her face was as darkly colored as the rest of her form, and a series of raised scales formed a semi-regular pattern on her face, especially on her forehead and cheeks. Her features were sharp but attractive, and she looked somewhere in her late teens. The most outstanding feature of her face, besides the short, wild mess of dark green, iridescent hair, was her eyes. They were large, bright eyes, fiery orange in color, and as she looked into the young man's face, her sharp greenish eyebrows and hard glare instantly reminded him of the cold, animalistic intelligence of Godzilla.

But as the soldier struggled to stay conscious, the look of anger on the girl's face changed to curiosity. The wild look in her eyes diminished, as her irises shrunk and her pupils dilated, becoming more human as she studied the young soldier's features; she had seen humans before, but usually from a distance, and none of them was this attractive. The Godzilla-morph leaned closer, staring with fascination into his glazed, blue eyes.

Then another gunshot echoed through the trees, another bullet tearing into the girl's shoulder. She winced, her head rapidly, snarling as she bared her sharp teeth, the wild predatory look returning to her eyes. The dorsal plates began to flash with blue energy, and with a roar she released a narrow stream of plasma from her mouth. The soldier that had fired on her just barely dodged the heat beam, which blasted apart the bark on the tree behind him, As the tree burned, the soldier ran back the way he came.

The Godzilla girl sprang up, chasing after him. As the two raced through the trees, the girl quickly catching up with. Then for some reason, the soldier leapt into the air, as though jumping over some invisible obstacle. The girl took no notice of this. Nor did she notice the slight tug on her leg as she ran across the spot where the soldier had leapt over.

The next thing she knew, the young kaiju was sent flying as a pair of claymore mines exploded, the wave of kinetic force and shrapnel pounding her slim frame as she bounced off a nearby tree, flopping limply to the ground, face down.

The six soldiers slowly closed in, looking for any sign of life. To make sure that she was dead, one of the soldiers, a cocky Air Force Major, fired a round into her... big mistake.

The girl suddenly reared up, her fins glowing as she fired a stream of energy into the circling rank of soldiers, cutting three men down, including the team leader, with a single heat beam. The survivors scattered, firing wildly as the small kaijumorph rose to her feet. As the soldiers flanked her, the Godzilla girl reached down, picking up a sharpened piece of wood, blown free of one of the nearby trees.

She flung it through the air like a spear, impaling a soldier as he tried to take cover behind a rock. The last two soldiers both dropped to the ground, firing their machine guns at the girl as she screamed defiantly at them. One of the machine guns suddenly jammed, an occupational hazard when using belt fed weapons. Scrambling to fix the jam, the soldier had no choice but to leap back as the Godzilla girl lunged, her claws digging into the ground where he had been standing.

As plasma began to build in her throat, the other soldier continued to fire on her, before ducking as she spun around and fired her heat beam. Then she actually kicked the jammed gun at her feet towards the armed man, knocking him back and over an embankment, yelling all the way as he rolled uncontrollably downhill before falling into a tributary flowing from the lake. He would live to tell his tale to his superiors.

With a mighty bellow, the last man, an Army veteran, tackled the girl from behind, the two of them crashing to the ground. The two struggled as the soldier flipped her onto her back, the flexible base of her dorsal plates allowing them to flatten to one side against the girl's back as she was violently twisted around.

The soldier straddled her, pulling out a knife from his vest jacket. Gripping it with both hands, he drove the blade down into her heart with all his strength... however, the knife barely broke the Godzilla girl's scaly skin. It was as though the soldier had tried to stab a rock. The girl actually sneered as she shoved the soldier off of her, quickly rising to her feet.

The soldier got back to his feet, drawing his pistol, but the girl spun on the spot, her tail lashing out like a whip, knocking the pistol from the man's hand. Her tail lashed out again, this time coiling around the soldier's neck. He struggled, trying to free himself from the tails constricting grip, but the girl simply yanked him towards her. She caught him by the head, then swung him face first into the ground one handed, the force of the blow crushing his skull.

She looked around, her heart pounding as she scanned the immediate area, expecting another attack at any moment. When none came, the Godzilla girl reared back her head and gave a high, bell-like roar, a disconcerting mix of a human scream and the call of Godzilla himself.

Now weary from her little war, the Godzilla-morph flexed her neck, her crystalline vertebrae popping as she undid a kink she incurred during the fight. She turned back to the lake, ready to take a long nap. But a nearby moan drew her attention. It was the man she had speared with a piece of wood earlier. He was lying where he had fallen, still alive, though not for much longer.

He looked up at the girl, as she stood beside a nearby boulder, resting a hand on its smooth surface. As she stared down at the dying soldier, the man, who was a Japanese native who's family immigrated to the US, began to mutter something in Japanese. She listened closely, but all the girl could hear was part of a single word "...jira".

As the soldier fell limp, the girl pondered what the word he said meant; she knew that these creatures used various sounds to communicate, or to describe things in their environment, as well as each other. The man had been looking at her when he said that word, so maybe that word was what they used to describe her.

Jira.

That felt like a good name to be called by. For now on, her name was Jira. Satisfied with this new revelation, Jira headed back to the lake, the waves lapping against her legs as she waded into the cold, clear water. After the intense fight she had been through, Jira was glad to return to the safety of the deep waters. Before her head disappeared beneath the surface of the lake, Jira gave one last bell-like cry into the early morning, echoing for miles. Declaring to the world that this place was home to Jira, Queen of the Monsters!

END.


End file.
